[Greenbuilding] Crushing Clay

[Ward Edwards]

You were on the right track with the cement mixer, but you need a cylinder  
without baffles and rounder balls.  Ball mills are used in the mining  
industry to crush ore down to powder for refining.  A search online for  
homemade ball mills shows a few variations that would work, but might need  
scaling up for your project.

Ward Edwards

On Wed, 03 Aug 2011 13:45:45 -0400, natural building  
<naturalbuilding at shaw.ca> wrote:

> Ladies and gentlemen,
>
> I wonder if I can tap into your collective intelligence and ingenuity to  
> come up with a simple, cheep, mechanical system for crushing dry clay  
> into a coarse powder.
>
> The mechanism could be store-bought or home-made and needs to be able to  
> stand up to the task of crushing lumpy dry clay - typically 1 inch minus  
> - down to powder.
>
> It could be hand-driven but would preferably be electrically powered.
>
> I tried using a cement mixer with a large smooth rock to pulverise the  
> clay but, while this system did produce good results, it also damaged  
> the mixer by creating bulges on either side where the rock impacted.
>
> For those that are curious, the clay powder is part of my rammed earth  
> mixture which will be used - either unstabilised or with 1% lime  
> stabilisation - to form the foundation of my new workshop. (see website  
> below)
>
> I look forward to your suggestions!
>
> Regards,
> Steve Satow
>
> www.naturalbuildingsite.net
> naturalbuilding at shaw.ca